Irving Silverstein/Staten Island AdvanceJames Padilla dispatches buses at the Castleton Depot in West Brighton.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A second Island bus dispatcher has been busted for abusing sick time, this time extending a trip to Puerto Rico by calling in two days before a scheduled vacation, according to the MTA.

When it was clear that supervisors doubted the timing of his supposed illness, James Padilla, 41, of Annadale, a dispatcher at West Brighton's Castleton Depot, confessed that he wasn't really sick on those two days, a transit official said.

In exchange for his coming clean, he will keep his job but forfeit the two sick days he used, and will be docked 30 percent of his pay for a month.

Another dispatcher, at the Yukon Depot in New Springville, abruptly retired last month after his employer balked at his use of 10 Family Medical Leave Act days for a sojourn at his second home, in Florida. Giovanni Bonanno, 62, had booked plane tickets a month before calling in sick, an MTA official said.

"This is not the rule, this is the exception," said Tony Gammone, president of the Subway Surface Supervisors Association, which represents bus dispatchers.

Gammone would not discuss Padilla's particular case, but said he believes the MTA is sensationalizing such stories of abuse to coincide with a court fight between the MTA and the union over chronic absenteeism.

The dispatchers' contracts, Gammone noted, do not include specific criteria to determine what constitutes a chronic health problem, and people who are legitimately sick have been subject to disciplinary action as chronic absentees. The union wants the MTA to negotiate a specific number of days off, or specific circumstances that would make an employee considered chronically absent, so members will understand the expectations and not risk being punished.

For its part, the MTA, which cracked down on another Island dispatcher last month, is waging a campaign to improve efficiency, cut waste, and run a tighter ship, as a means of staving off a nearly $800 million budget deficit that already has necessitated severe service cuts to buses, trains and Access-A-Ride.

"We're going to continue going after cases that are clearly abusing the system," said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin.